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Not many people would know these very disturbing facts about Chocolate:
<ul>[*]70% of the worlds cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast in Africa.[*]More than 600,000 children who live in this region work on cocoa fields[*]284,000 children work in dangerous conditions[*]In Cote d’Ivoire on the Ivory coast 40-50% of children between 5 and 14 years of age work full time.[*]15,000 are captured, beaten, forced to work, underfed and not paid.[*]Many of these children are trafficked from other African countries like Mali.[*]Major chocolate companies know this but still buy from the criminals who run these plantations.[/list]</blockquote>

Lindt is not fair-trade. Green & Blacks is but is owned by Cadburys who are not.

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The sloppy reporting is obvious: First, "In Cote d’Ivoire on the Ivory coast "....Cote d&#39;Ivoire IS the Ivory Coast.

Wikipedia puts I.C. output at half of what the newspaper story does.

Child labor is not unique to cocoa production by a long shot. The same complaints listed hold true for many other industries including family farms. In most of the world, if a kid can work, he or she does. Don&#39;t forget, most adults working in those parts of the world aren&#39;t treated much, if any, better.

Do you know why child labor laws came into existence here? High moral standards? Cherishing childhood? More like get the labor competition out of the way so adults would get paid more.

So what do we do? Boycott? That would be like boycotting gasoline, nobody will.

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I also feel that the report is kind of biased.

It&#39;s hard to make a judgement without actually having the details on what cocoa farms look like and who works there.

Sometimes I wander though, is all child labor created equal? I mean, I live in the country where 50% of residents are farmers and what not. Their kids are actively involved in helping the parents run the farms. They go to school and are well taken care of, but still, after they get home from school there&#39;s not whole lot of play time with the friends. They have a job to do and they don&#39;t complain about it too often. Is this child labor since they don&#39;t get paid for it and really don&#39;t have a say in the matter? Should we boycot local farms as well? I&#39;m being ironic here, but I hope my point can be understood.